To want Primark to provide a women only changing room?

[Amelia1985x]

I’m a regular Primark customer and was surprised to go the store yesterday and find all the changing rooms had been redesignated as mixed sex. The shop assistant told me not to worry, because most customers on the ladies’ floor were women, and anyway, she could see down the line of curtained cubicles and would challenge a “dodgy man”. When I questioned her about how she would spot one, she called the Manager as he could explain the policy better.

He told me the world was changing. I asked him why Primark had had sex segregated changing rooms in the first place. No answer. I asked him what specific legislative change or scientific discovery had occurred that made the world different to this time last year. No answer. He said that this arrangement was more inclusive for nonbinary people.

I explained that I didn’t feel that comfortable stripping to my knickers in a mixed area, and he told me I could always use the one disabled cubicle which has a lockable door. Clearly this has been designed for mixed sex use and did have a lock, but obviously I would then be blocking its use for a disabled person. He suggested there was no reason to be concerned. Yet when I think about me and my women friends, all our me-too moments, - of being flashed at, or masturbated at, sexual assaults and rapes – all have been my men.

The manager was unabashed. He said Primark had done research – even though he couldn’t produce it, and there were no leaflets or posters to explain this HUGE policy change to customers. He told me I was the only person who had ever complained.

So I guess this is what I want to know. Am I a dinosaur? Am I being unreasonable to want a women only changing room?

Just got me thinking it's not just shop changing rooms that are mixed sex, our local pool is mixed sex too, obviously locked cubicals, the more of this thread and the comments I totally understand where you are coming from

strawberrieshortcake
Re South Korea - I think it's a country wide epidemic involving all sorts of men and happens everywhere - not just toilets / changing rooms. In fact, if you look online for spy cameras there are a scary range of devices (coat hooks etc) that you just wouldn't spot as they are completely disguised. Sadly there seem to be little that stops these predatory males and a lot that enables them.

@uncompromisingwoman

Yes from what I have heard it happens in all settings including on trains and even in medical settings. It is really disgusting that women there cannot feel safe anywhere in public.

Things like this used to make me wonder how this ideology has taken hold so quickly and seemingly universally. Then I read this article, which explained it. Terrifying:

thefederalist.com/2018/02/20/rich-white-men-institutionalizing-transgender-ideology/

Blatant, out and out sexism.

You mean men assaulting, raping and murdering women, yes that is definitely sexist.

Oh no, you mean pointing out that men as a class are a threat to women and girls, is blatant sexism, and that is what you are concerned about? Wow.

Thanks for all the replies. It feels like the majority of posters would feel uncomfortable in a mixed sex changing room where cubicles are separated by curtains.

I think a lot of the problem is the lack of investment in infrastuture - if stores want unisex changing rooms, the best design would be enclosed, lockable units, that are impossible to peer over. People are saying - oh, they have unisex in Decathlon or Tescos etc., but if you think about the design of these cubicles, they have been built with these issues in mind.

Most ladies changing rooms have been designed with minimal privacy...

Anyway, thank you for your input Mumsnet Jury. I do feel rather vindicated - given yesterday I was being told I was the ONLY person who had any problem with all of this at all. So pissed off with PRIMARK - the store that gives us a yearly round of Princess t-shirts for our daughters and dinosaurs and trains for our son... but is apparently so ‘inclusive’ and sensitive to tackling the gender isshooos that it can’t have a ladies changing room

Just one more point - I’d lost my old log in so joined Mumsnet again to post this last night. On the first attempt, MNHQ blocked my post and suspended my account for about 30 minutes, whilst we chatted about whether I was a genuine poster. And they were very nice, and unblocked me.

Anyway, in that conversation, they did suggest I might prefer to post on the feminist board, rather than being eaten alive on AIBU.... but clearly, this is an issue where many women share similar feelings of discomfort.

It just occurs to me that this whole debate has become so toxic, that we are often afraid to voice our fears to each other - this is certainly true for me. I wonder if this is our soundest defence - to just speak to each other more - other women, other mothers. We need to be less afraid.

A woman is murdered by a man every 3 days in the UK. That’s how much of a threat men are, as a class, to women.

We need single sex spaces, for our privacy, our dignity and above all else our safety.

That's interestingOP. Because this thread just highlights how women's concerns are not about trans issues. They are about the threat that some men pose to women and children and how the protective measures (sex segregated spaces) being removed, harm us all.

Was it Margaret Atwood who said: Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them

YANBU. I tried something on in a primary the other day, left my little boy outside the curtain in the pram and didn't completely close the curtain so I could still peek out to him. Didn't realise it was a mixed sex changing room until I her a man cough in the cubicle next to me. Took me by surprise and made me feel pretty uncomfortable.

I don't use any changing rooms now unless they have a door that locks. That's because I discovered on mumsnet that some women think it's fine for their male partners to pop in and out of a woman's changing room. If some women can't respect other women's boundaries then I don't expect men to either.

@APerkyPumpkin Yes, making out that all men are a threat to women is sexism. It is offensive to the many millions of men who would never be abusive to women.

What part of it don't you understand?

@CaveMum Have any of the murders taken place in a unisex high street shop changing room? If not, I don't see the relevance.

I suspect the reason why Primark - and all the other stores - have not had any complaints previously is simply because no one knew that the changing rooms had become, unisex, mixed sex, gender neutral or whatever you want to call them. Most people will have just presumed that there were changing rooms for men and changing rooms for women and because, in reality, there are still very, very few transgender people around or men wanting to use women's changing rooms then no on has noticed the change.

Either way, it seems to me that this new policy of allowing people to 'use the changing room they are most comfortable with' is solving a problem that doesn't exist while at the same time creating a whole bunch of new problems. Sadly, I think the genie may already be out of the bottle.

Eckhart have you heard of this thing called 'risk assessment'?

@Eckhart I never said murders take place in unisex changing rooms, what those statistics demonstrate is that, as you seem to wilfully misunderstand, men AS A CLASS are a threat to women.

I’m assuming you haven’t bothered to read the link I’ve posted several times already so I’ll summarise for you:

In 2017/18 just under 90% of reports of sexual assaults/voyeurism/harassment in changing rooms took place in mixed-sex facilities.

Two-thirds of sexual attacks at leisure centres and public swimming pools took place in mixed sex changing rooms.

Tell me why you think there’s no danger to women/girls in using mixed sex changing rooms in a clothing shop.

@feelingverylazytoday Yes. And if there is increased risk, you increase security, so that offenders cannot offend. Adequate security and lockable doors would suffice. If it didn't... the security would need to be more... adequate.

If you'd RTFT you'd see I'd said this about 5 times. Men are not the problem. Sexual predators are the problem. 'Men' is not the same as 'sexual predators'. Being against men is sexist. Being against sexual predators is what we all are.

@Cavemum see above.

I would be very unhappy with mixed changing rooms and refuse to use them, whether it's Primark or Top Shop.

M&S's attitude to the underwear they sell is particularly troubling. They know fetishists are trying on their lingerie, they accept reviews from men and they allow returns. I do not want to buy knickers used by some stranger as a masturbatory aid.

I feel anyone running women specific changing rooms should be taught about the preoccupations and behaviour of men who get aroused by women's clothing. They seem to be blissfully unaware of just how common such perverts are.

Eckhart
As others have explained, safeguarding is about prevention. Sex segregated spaces are a protective measure to stop predatory males from accessing women when vulnerable. The World Health Organisation advocates single sex toilets / washing spaces because of the threat that (some) men pose to women and our society has until now, operated along the same lines.
The only reason things are changing is because lobby groups have insisted that sex based rights must be removed because some groups (predominantly born male groups) are unhappy with them. And they have capitulated.

Women as a group have very limited power - as is currently very evident. It was very heartening to read the comments under this powerful article in the Times the other day - hundreds of men agreeing that women are in danger from the removal of sex segregated spaces:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/politicians-are-betraying-women-in-the-rush-to-support-trans-rights-xzvhcf7m8?shareToken=c52fbcc4894e5c9340275e12684b21fb

An inability to spot patterns must be such a burden, Eckhart

@noblegiraffe I don't deny any of the statistics that other posters have posted. I agree that most sexual predators are men. I agree that women are vulnerable to men. None of my posts have contradicted any of those things.

Which other patterns have I missed?

Yanbu about wanting a unisex changing room if that is what makes you comfortable but yabu in the way you went about this situation.

I work in retail management. Do you seriously think that store managers are given this much detail/explanation from the higher powers about changes like this? Seriously the guy probably got an email or quick phone call "we're coming to change your fitting rooms" why?? "ah we researched it and people want mixed sex ones" "oh really? Um OK". That's probably the extent of the info he was provided and he would have been given absolutely no say in the matter, so why did you bash the poor fella? You should have asked for their head office number or looked it up online and spoke to someone high up who could have actually had the information to help with the matter.

hopelesssuitcase you don't know what he's paid to do? He's paid to manage staff, recruitment, training, rota's, filing paperwork for annual leave, sick leave, maternity leave, boost sales, merchandise, open and close premises, stock loss control, amongst many other things. You've clearly never worked in retail management yourself. He's certainly not given the resources, information or training by his bosses to know the minutae details of head office's research into fitting room policy's 🙄

I must admit that I have been peak-transed by posts I have seen on MN.

I cannot see why trans-men and trans-women are not lobbying for their own spaces. It worries me for the future